Alumna Supports UNM with Current and Future IRA Gifts

UNM alumna Kandy Frame retired in 2008 after a 34-year career working for the University of California and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory at Los Alamos National Laboratory. When she pursued her education, women were not encouraged to attain degrees in STEM disciplines. Nevertheless, Kandy’s mother encouraged her to apply for technical positions and advised her not to admit she knew what a typewriter was. Kandy was hired as a mechanical technician in 1974, and her prodigious career began. 

Kandy attended UNM in the late 1960s and after three years transferred to the Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute, where she graduated with an accounting clerk associates degree. In the late 1970s while working full-time, she continued her education at UNM Los Alamos where she studied instrumentation engineering technology. 

During her working years she received many promotions, paid off her home, and contributed to a 403(b) plan—the nonprofit version of a 401(k). Kandy was saving for a comfortable retirement and the fulfillment of her dream to travel and see the world. She earned a good pension from the University of California and after retirement converted half of her 403(b) into an individual retirement account (IRA). 

Kandy has always been philanthropic and is utilizing her IRA to support UNM now and in the future. The IRA charitable rollover allows individuals aged 70½ or older to make a tax-free gift of all or part of their required minimum distribution to qualified charities. This has allowed Kandy to make donations to support several UNM programs, including the Presidential Scholarship. UNM Presidential Scholars include some of New Mexico’s highest achieving high school graduates. Kandy sponsors two Presidential Scholars annually in honor of her mother, who never had the opportunity to attend college.  

Kandy is also supporting UNM in the future. A decades-long donor, she designated New Mexico Public Broadcasting Service as a beneficiary of her IRA. When retirement assets are donated to a qualified charity, they are received tax-free. Through a provision in her living trust, Kandy will also establish the Roy A. Frame Family Endowed Presidential Scholarship Fund. The fund seeks to support STEM majors and honors her father, a mechanical engineer and 1942 UNM alum. 

Kandy has a strong family connection to the university and believes the pursuit of higher education equips one to master complex challenges and overcome adversity. “I want to give back and to provide the resources for others to pursue higher education and to hopefully have a good life.” Over the last decade she has paid tuition for two women to attend college: one at UNM and another at George Fox University in Oregon. Kandy spreads her generosity to many charitable organizations, and the UNM Foundation is proud to be one of them.